Batman Beyond: Freakshow
by Jakazul
Summary: Lazarus pits, human crocodiles, zombies, a man with a head bigger than a watermelon, what better name than Freakshow? This is not a sequel, but reading BB:Dracula first might not be a bad idea. *Chapter 5 up* Please R&R!
1. Lexi

(C) Information... While I do not own Batman or related characters I did create th  
the character of Alexis (Lexi) and would appreciate it if you would e-mail me for  
permission to use her.  
***  
BATAMAN BEYOND: FREAKSHOW  
  
Lexi Wilson climbed down the rusty, moss covered ladder into the sewer.  
Her arms hurt and sweat was making her mask uncomfortable.  
The dripping water from the rain above had soaked her and it was hard  
to hold on to the metal rungs.  
"How're you doin'?"  
Terry's voice came over the com-link in her helmet.  
"You don't wanna know."  
She said, shivering as a rat crawled up her back.  
Wayne and Terry watched the computer as Lexi's eyepeice sent feedback.  
"Man, I wish my legs weren't broaken so I could do this. I don't like here down there."  
"Concerned about your girlfriend?"  
Bruce's face spread into a rare smirk.  
"She's not my girlfriend!"  
"Yeah...Sure."  
Terry glared and then returned to the screen.  
Lexi slid down the end of the ladder and let her feet sink into the mossy sewer floor.  
Shivering again, she splashed through the foot of stagnent water.  
"I hate it down here!'  
She twisted he front of her belt and a light came on.  
"I want a suit like that!' Terry said.  
She stepped into a dark tunnel and her light fell on what she was there for.  
"I found the enterance."  
She touched a hidden button on her right temple and her camera zoomed in on the hidden grating.  
"Are you sure this is the right one Wayne?"  
"I'm never sure."  
She glared and bent down.  
After pushing a button on her wrist to extend a mini-chainsaw she cut through   
the metal grating.  
"Top of the line steroids. These'd sell for 5000 creds a piece on the black  
market."  
"Yes they will."  
A cold gun was pushed into her back, between her shoulderblades.  
"Now stand up slowly. You try anything and you'll be cottage cheese."  
She stood up with the steroids in her hand.  
"Ok. Now give me the steroids."  
"Alright."  
She pushed her thumb into the middle of one pack and the corners of each square peeled up.  
"Here you go!"  
She ducked and slammed the squares into the criminals face.  
"AHHH!!!"  
Bullets flew through the air as she ran at the sewer entrance.  
"GET HER!"  
Five men in white suits ran up firing at her.  
She reached the ladder and pushed the button to open her wings.  
Just as they popped open a bullet cut into her arm.  
"Ahh!"  
She dropped the packs and fell to her knees just as the first man rounded the corner.  
His head bulged and pulsed with veins and muscles and was too big for the corridor  
she stood in.  
"Stay back!"  
The cement crumbled as he came for her.  
She turned on the rocket thrusters, but it was too late.  
Rubble cascaded onto her and she crumpled.  
"LEXI!!"  
Terry yelled at the computer.  
Bruce went sraight to the keyboard and began typing commands.  
"What are you doing?"  
"I'm enhancing the suit's mainframe. It will keep her from being crushed, but  
it can't last for too long. I need somebody down there now!"  
"How can I?"  
"I'll do the same thing to your suit. Your legs are getting better, I'll turn up the  
leg mainfraim."  
"Do it."  
@@@  
Lexi felt arms under hers pulling her up.  
"Wha...?"  
"Quiet."  
She was lifted up and then set down atop the rubble.  
"Who are...you?"  
"My name," a raspy voice said," is Waylon Jones.Come with me."  
@@@  
Terry arrived too late.  
Lexi and the smugglers had disappeared.  
"They're gone."  
Bruce stared into the monitor.  
"Look around."  
Terry looked right and left slowly and then up and down.  
"Freeze. Right there. Let me zoom in."  
The monitor screen was suddenly flooded by a single chunk of cement.  
Upon the rock lay a single, green scale.  
@@@ 


	2. Croc

Batman dashed down the only opening in the rocks.  
It must be a crocodile.  
Gotham and the GCPU forces had supposedly exterminated all crocodiles  
in Gohtam's sewers years ago, but it seemed that Alexis had found out differently.  
He just hoped it wouldn't be too late.  
@@@  
Lexi struggled, suspended above the room.  
It was like a round waterfall with the scum-filled water flowing into the abyss below.  
Her "rescuer" stood across from her on the oposite side of the falls.  
Cans full of toxic waste sat around him sending the stench of sulfur into the cavern.  
He smiled.  
"Only a few minutes more. Batman's to quick to not figure this out. He'll  
be coming to the rescue any minute."  
He paused and ran a claw down his jaw.  
"Unless... No, he couldn't know. Too soon."  
"Know what?"  
"That I've got..." It suddenly dawned on Croc's small mind what she was doing  
and he chose his words carefully. "Contacts."  
"Who?"  
He could feel a headache coming. Too much thinking.  
"None of your business."  
Lexi swung back her head to remove the hair that had fallen in her, now unmasked, face and  
then spoke again.  
"If you plan on letting me die anyway why not tell me?"  
Logic wasn't one of Croc's strongpoints and his head was already spinning.  
What she said made since.  
Once dead she couldn't leak information.  
Then he understood.  
"I SAID SHUT-UP!"  
He picked up a can and almost hurled it at her, then remembered he needed her  
as bait and tossed it into the chasm.  
It hit the bottom and, after hissing and oozing it's contents, let out a slow trickle of smoke.  
Lexi whinced as the smoke enveloped her.  
When it cleared, Croc was gone.  
@@@  
Terry raced through the twisting tunnel till he came to a solid metal door marked  
with an old caution sign rusted on.  
"Think this is the place?"  
"You don't have time to find out. Only one hour left till your legs go out."  
"Oh, that's encouraging."  
Terry pulled a small laser from his belt and blasted the hinges into metal sludge.  
"So," he started just before he lunged at the door."who'd you say this guy is?"  
The door smashed into him and he was pinned against the wall face to face with...  
"Killer Croc..."  
He clawed Terry's face leaving bloody streaks across his face and continued.  
"...At your service."  
@@@ 


	3. Terry

Lexi pulled at the ropes binding her untill her boots slid off and she swung by her wrists over the  
deep chasm.  
"I had to get myself into this. They warned me, they said 'no Lexi it's too dangerous',but I just   
wouldn't listen."  
She swallowed her fear and began to swing.  
When she had the momentum she needed the straightened her hands and flew out from her gloves.  
She slid down a moss-covered wall and came to a sitting position on a barrel of toxic waste.  
"Well I'm glad to be out of that."  
She stood in the foot deep water and rubbed her bare feet.   
"Now let's get out of here."  
She took a step.  
"Hope that crocodile-man doesn't come ba-"  
Suddenly a smoking Croc flew threw the room and smashed into the wall opposite the chasm.  
Terry stepped in dripping with blood and green water.  
"Hi."  
She stared at him as he stood waiting for Croc to regain a standing position.  
"...Um...Hi."  
Croc pulled himself up and grinned.  
"Bombs? Batman doesn't use bombs!"  
"I just did."  
Croc leapt across the chasm and tackled Terry to the ground, shoving his head into the water.  
Terry struggled and then kicked Croc off him.  
Croc slid on the damp rocks and plummeted into the chasm.  
Terry began to stand just as the circuits in his legs gave out.  
"Thirty minutes already?"  
He hit the ground right infront of the pit and looked down.  
Croc dangled almost fifty feet below, clutching a broaken pipe and trying to climb onto a small jut of  
brick.  
"This is crazy."  
Terry reached for his grapnel and fired at the brick.  
"CLIMB ON!"  
Croc reached up and grabbed the cable.  
"Terry no!"  
Lexi ran forward and slipped, falling into the hole.  
"NOOO!!!"  
Terry grabbed her hand, but the combined weight of Lexi and Croc was too much.  
He felt the sliding brick on his chest as he neared the edge and then...  
The falling sensation seemed to last forever as they fell toward the bottom.  
A green glow was coming nearer and growing stronger as they neared the end of the fall.  
He could see a sort of muddy edge on either side of the "floor" littered with barrels of toxic waste and  
the smell was becoming un-barable.  
That's when they hit.  
Alexis smashed into the mud and sunk in almost three inches.  
Terry hit a barrel so hard that he almost blacked out, saved only by the suits reinforcements.  
It was Croc who discovered the strange green pool in the center of the room.  
Discovered it head first.  
@@@  
Samson Maxwell pulled himself into his apartment and collapsed.  
His white suit was torn and his pant legs were dirty from the sewer water.  
Pain tore through his throbbing head and tears streamed down his face.  
"That little..."  
Even if he had been able to finish his sentence before blacking out it would have had to have been censored,  
but the jist was that he was extremely angry at Alexis Wilson.  
After all, how would you feel if someone had shoved fifty packs of illegal steroids into your forehead?  
Or if your head was the size of a desk chair.  
@@@ 


	4. Samson

Terry helped up Lexi as he stared at the green pool through his torn mask.  
"What is it?"  
"How should I kno..."  
"Not you. Wayne."  
The vid-links was dammaged, but an image still came through.  
Bruce leaned in and stared.  
"I thought those were gone."  
Ace stood up, disturbed by the tension in Wayne's voice.  
"What is it?"  
"It's called... A Lazarus Pit."  
"Like the ones Ras Al Gul uses?"  
"Exactly. The toxic wastes must have formed a synthetic pit."  
"So what'll happen to Croc," Lexi sked.  
Bruce's eyes widened as a memory of the insane Ras Al Gul rising from a Lazarus pit years ago, attacking  
his own daughter to escape, stronger than a bull for those fleeting hours.  
"Terry, Lexi, GET OUT OF THERE!"  
It was too late.  
A green hand bolted from the ooze and a bulge grew as Croc's head pushed through.  
"This isn't good is it?"  
@@@  
Samson pushed himself up from the grimy floor of his apartment and stood as much as possible.  
He reached for his cell-phone and staggered to his couch.  
"Hello?"  
"Marty, I need help..."  
"Samson?"  
"Look Marty, my heads been pumped full o' steroids enough ta kill a cow. I'm..."  
"When've you seen a cow?"  
"SHUT-UP! I need help!!!"  
@@@  
Croc burst from the pit and made a wild lunge for Lexi.  
Terry leapt infront of her and was suddenly caught in bear hug.  
The strength in Croc's arms was too much for him to struggle against.  
He felt dizzy as the blackness closed in around the corners of his eyes and he could feel his ribs  
cracking.  
Lexi stood and whipped a battarang from her belt.  
Croc tossed Terry against a wall and leapt at Lexi.  
The battarang sliced into an inch-thick scale.  
No damage done.  
Terry slid down the wall and watched as Crc's claws neared Alexis's face.  
"NO!"  
@@@  
Samson and Marty stepped into another tunnel in the sewers.  
"C'm'on Sams'n. We ain't gonna find nothin'."  
Samson splashed into a corridor.  
"Oh really?"  
Marty walked after him and stared.  
A metal door was ripped from it's hinges with claw marks, splashes of blood and smoke everywhere.  
" 'Kay... So I's wrong."  
Samson ducked down and stepped into the room the door had been blocking.  
A huge pit sunk into the middle with ropes and boots hanging from the ceiling.  
On the far wall was the imprint of a huge man-like reptilian form.  
Samson smiled.  
"Waylon Jones? I thought he w's dead."  
@@@ 


	5. Marty

Croc fell back as Lexi's bare foot slammed into his face.  
  
The rough scales had sliced up her heel so it was hard to tell who's blood was on his face the most.  
  
Terry lay in the mud, his head and legs throbbing.  
  
Lexi and Croc were a blur of fists,claws and blood.  
  
Terry pulled himself up as much as he could on his broaken legs and hobbled toward them.  
  
He pulle a battarang from the hidden compartment in his belt and poised, ready to throw.  
  
@@@  
  
Samson and Marty stared down the hole.  
  
They could hear screaming at the bottom, but was it really the girl?  
  
"So," Samson said, "how are we gonna get down there?"  
  
"We're not! I dunno if I mentioned dis before, but I'm afraid of heights. Anyway if that girls down there," He listened  
  
to the screams, "She's gettin her payback from Croc."  
  
"Oh really?" A wild gleam came into samson's eyes. "I think you should investigate! Break your fear of falls!"  
  
"Wha...Samson hold on a sec... Samson! NO!"  
  
KA-BLAM!KA-BLAM!KA-BLAM!  
  
The bullets ripped into Marty's wirey frame and he fell backwards, into the chasm.  
  
@@@  
  
Everything stopped.  
  
Croc stared up.  
  
Lexi paused, blood and mud covering every inch of her.  
  
Terry lowered his battarang.  
  
Gunshots?  
  
People?  
  
Gradualy they could make out the form of a figure flying at them.  
  
Screaming.  
  
Just as Lexi realised that the figure was covered in bullet-holes it slammed into the Lazarus pit.  
  
Green goo splashed out and a swirel of blood trickled to the top.  
  
"I don't think the pit's doing him any good."  
  
Terry starred at the pit.  
  
Then, just as Croc made a last lunge at Lexi, Terry let his battarang fly.  
  
It sliced into Croc's head, just next to his right eye in a soft stretch of scaleless skin.  
  
He fell to the ground moaning and, almost simultaneously, Lexi collapsed.  
  
Terry wrapped his arm around the two and fired a grapnel up to the ceiling above the chasm.  
  
@@@  
  
Samson heard the splash at the bottom and smiled.  
  
"See ya latter Marty."  
  
He pulled the rose out of his button loop and tossed it into the pit, then turned and left the cavern.  
  
If he had waited just a few seconds more he would have seen the cable dig into the ceiling and three of his worst enemies come  
  
up.  
  
No one saw the fourth one come. 


End file.
